Whither the snowflakes?

Whither the snowflakes? Inquiring minds want to know. Curious people all over the country are wondering what will occur when the snowflakes — aka, the crybullies — are finally forced out of their safe spaces on campus, and into the cold winds of life. Three nasty shocks seem in store for these little darlings: When they find out — the horror — that there are no "safe spaces"; when they find out that others are allowed to speak sometimes; and when they discover their degrees in race/gender studies may not be the asset they thought.

While student hysterics are nothing too novel, what is new is this sense of excessive fragility in which they demand as a right a complete insulation from all things unpleasant — a loud noise, a cold look, a harsh word. Someone you don't like comes to visit your campus? Go to a safe room, and hug a stuffed animal. A line in a poem triggers a "flashback?" Ask for a warning, and cry. "I don't want to debate, I want to talk about my pain," a student wrote in the Yale Herald. He may want to talk, but few want to listen. And what a shock to his system when he finds this out.

Are they snowflakes or fascists, asked Mona Charen regarding these students. The answer seems to be that they're both: snowflakes when it comes to their sensibilities, and fascists concerning the interests of everyone else. Who can forget Melissa Click, calling for "muscle," to hustle photographers out of her way? Or, as one student put it, "What really bothered me is the whole idea that ... we need be hearing a diversity of opinion. I don't think we should be tolerating conservative views."

But that's how it goes outside of the campus, where even MSNBC employs some conservative panelists, and The New York Times on occasion will run their op-eds. Can they adapt to real life, or will the struggle exhaust them? And that's not the worst of their woes.